Finding the Ghosts of K’ road

Tracey Benson

Symposium delegates engage in a work that combines a guided walk around a famous street in the city of Auckland with the use of augmented reality. This work has been created by Australian based media artist Tracey Benson to explore the site of Auckland as a potential tourist, seeking to build a knowledge of the location from afar – past journeys and memories, present events, spaces, places and histories.

By attending the walk, participants can discover some ghostly relics of buildings along a section of K Road. This is achieved by downloading and using an app for Internet enabled hand-held devices – smart phones and tablets. The accompanying guide will assist the audience (tourist) to explore the city through the eyes of a stranger. As both tour guide and tourist, it will be a journey of discovery for both artist and audience, which is intended to build knowledge of the past of K Road while engaging with its present form.

K Road’s story ties closely to Maori culture:“According to Maori oral tradition and mythology. Hape was an ancient Maori ancestor who travelled from Rarotonga on the back of a stingray arriving on the shores of Mangere. Hape greeted the Tainui waka on its arrival with a ‘karanga’ or greeting – hence “karangahape”. Karangahape is also said to mean “a winding ridge of human activity”.( source: http://kroad.com/8_Shopping/810_Shopping/documents/HeritageWalk_FA2_lowrez.pdf)

The walk was be guided by K’ Road historian Edward Bennett, who has been collaborating with Tracey to develop Finding the Ghosts of K’ Road. Tracey also acknowledges Trudy Lane for sharing some of her personal family history and knowledge of Karangehape Road.

Finding the Ghosts of K’ Road builds on a previous project developed for ADA Mesh Cities in 2013 titled Walks of Absent Memory, where the focus was on Dunedin’s urban architectural past. This time rather than presenting remotely Tracey will join the Symposium to lead the walk and present in the Performing the City Panel ~ 10.30am on Sunday September 14